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He savours what he saw, and he puts that away too, for another day. When he needs to remember.

Then, he stills, utterly unable to move when Jim touches him, and eyes his hand warily. A few minutes later he relaxes, accepts it. Not pity.

'Yes.' A pause. 'That's... poetic.' He exhales, and then he half turns, so Jim can see his back. There's less there, compared to his front, but it's fresher, and far deeper.

"Don't tell anyone," he jokes, but the sentiment is hollow. He'd seen the marks on his shoulder before, but not the whole thing, and he has to remind himself not to show the anger that surges to the surface. The universe is a cold, cruel place, and sometimes people get hurt where no one can hear them scream. That's just how it is. He's known it. He's always known that.

But seeing the reality of it hurts. Just like it did with Pike, and Spock, and George (I can't be a Kirk in this house--) and Jim represses a very strong desire to find out who did this and pay them back in kind.

(Cuff him.)

Finally, "I could use another beer."

He flicks his wrist, and a construct crane raises an unopened bottle for Jim. Kyle stays where he is for a while, breathing slowly again, before he reaches for his shirt and slides it back on. He never thought of it as armour. The marks, that's the real protection. They show the world he's not to be trifled with, that he's been made by things they can't touch.

He's tempted to say thank you, to Jim, for clamping down on the anger, but he doesn't. He lets it show in the slight sag of his shoulders, and the brief squeeze of a hand.

Jim takes the beer and reaches over to smack the cap of it off against the edge of an end-table. One day he'll introduce these people to the concept of a screw-on cap, but apparently that day isn't today.

He takes a swig, settles into the couch until his elbow's braced on the back of it and he can press the bottle against his temple. He's not thinking about war or pain or being alone throughout, he's thinking about dusty, endless roads in Iowa and everything they mean to him. Sometimes it felt like freedom, that he could walk anywhere and end up anywhere, and sometimes it felt like a cage, because there was nothing to find no matter how far he went.

Their world is brighter than Kyle's. With its Eugenic Wars and its systematic oppression and its political corruptions (It's got to be more than Robert April and Alexander Marcus and Commodore Daniels, how high up does the rot go?) and its hunger and thirst for war, it's still brighter than what Kyle faces.

It's why he doesn't say a word. He just takes another drink.

He takes another unopened bottle for himself, and a few quick seconds with a construct get the cap off. He puts it down on the table meticulously. He's not a tidy person, usually, but he is careful. Anything can be tool. Anything can be a weapon.

He pays attention to himself first, pouring in half a glass and taking a sip, vaguely remaining aware of Jim in his periphery. Maybe it's a good thing the telepathy's gone, he'd be tempted to brush the man's mind to get a feel of what he might be thinking.

Instead, he uses the old fashioned way. 'Headache?'

"As in, 'Not tonight, honey, I've got a--?'" Jim laughs, shakes his head. "No. Just been a long day."

Kyle reaches out, cups Jim's cheek briefly with his hand, before he lets it drop to his leg again. Jim doesn't like prolonged contact - or, he isn't really used to it, and the first time he met Kyle it had meant violence. Now it had to mean something else.

Changing connotations took time. He knew; he could wait.

He doesn't visibly react to the gesture, save to meet Kyle's eyes, but afterwards he swings his legs to the floor and takes another long pull of beer, then he stands and heads to the kitchen. He is starving.

Edited 2013-07-17 14:09 (UTC)

Kyle doesn't move from where he is. He lets the ring set up the easel and paintbrushes, and prepare a fresh canvas. He's got time to paint but for some reason he always ends up burning a lot of what he makes when he's at Jim's. Not to be deterred, he just kept trying.

For now though, the beer was a better option.

He's never been much of a cook. Never had a need for it. It was cheaper to buy the bar special of the week than it was to get the fresh food to do it himself, and the Academy had a cafeteria that was open twenty-four hours every standard day. He knew how to make a few things, and those things he did damned well, but that was the extent of his culinary skill. Having someone else in his space was making him feel claustrophobic, and half of him just wanted to tell Kyle to leave. It's better on the Enterprise, if he needs to be alone he can just order people out of whatever room he's in and that's that.

He misses it, he realizes. Being in charge. Jim's not one to abuse his power but damn does he like having it, and the revocation of it hurts way worse than any broken leg, any torture inflicted. Jim rubs at his arm as he fries up eggs, focused a little too intently on the snap of grease in the skillet. Everything aches, suddenly, and Jim... Jim has to grip the countertop and remind himself to breathe.

McCoy's going to have a field day with his mental health when they finally sit down to do a mandatory review. Jim has every intention of putting it off as long as he can, but he knows that he's Not All Right, capital letters strictly for emphasis. He knows that any sound like snapping bone can throw him right back into the injury, it makes him break out in a cold sweat just thinking about it. Being trapped-- hell, even being around Kyle or Spock in silence makes it hard to escape from that little room in his memory.

He flips the eggs. Pokes at them. Lets them settle.

Breathes. Counts the seconds. Releases it.

Then, "Hey, you want eggs?"

Jim's learning silence, or Kyle's forcing him to. Either way, he enjoys the peace and quiet, and having someone around. Space, when one got down to it, was infinite, black, and empty. Silent, too. The crushing, belligerent silence that made one think of an eerie calm before thunder.

He likes quiet, sometimes. He uses it, because it means real power, and not something that people just like to flaunt. He learnt that the hard way, when he stopped yelling and started doing, when he carried another man's sins (an entire Corps' sins). It's when the rookies ask Hal or Guy for stories and get an entire hour's worth, but the same question posed to John or Kyle would get one word, one sentence at best.

It's not victory if you're the last one left standing.

He starts at the question, and calls back, 'Yes, please.'

Jim slides the eggs onto a single plate with a couple of forks and pieces of toast, and then comes back out into the living room, hefting the whole thing aloft.

"Here. Whenever you want."

'No time like the present,' he says, cheerfully, and takes a plate, before he glances at the leg, wondering if he should ask about it.

But Jim's not really in the mood to beat around any sort of bush at all, so he arches an eyebrow. "What?"

'I was wondering if I should ask about your leg,' he says, simply, and honestly.

"Bones said it's healing straight, though, and there's a very good possibility he'll dedicate a cult to Sora's surgical abilities. But it's fine. I'll be wearing this cast for months, but it's fine."

He cuts up several pieces of egg with his fork and drops it onto the toast, folds it over and eats it. There's a bit of anger now in the way he moves, restrained but there regardless.

You're not fine, you're angry, he thinks, and doesn't know how to fix it. He himself went straight to a healer, he couldn't afford... pride. Like this.

He eats quietly, his own movements tidy, and serene. Still waters.

And in annoyance, "What?"

'Hm?' Kyle looks up, fork half in his mouth, tilts his head curiously. Words. He needs words. 'I didn't imply anything?'

"Oh my god, will you stop." Jim lifts a hand and just sort of shakes it out in frustration. "Just stop. That. Whatever that is."

He winces. 'Bad time, huh? Should I give you some space? Or.. do you want to talk about something?'

He's trying. Damnit, he's trying.

There's too many thoughts warring for higher ground in his mind.

(They tortured Spock, someone's hurting you, I only know what I can do, I can't be a Kirk in this house--)

And he doesn't want to think or talk about or address it at all, and he doesn't want to be around someone who's seen his scars and can read him well enough to know what they mean and where they came from.

How's our ship?

One of the lessons that keeps getting hammered into his brain here is humility. In a lot of ways it's less like moving forward and more like regressing to childhood, getting perfect grades and being perfectly silent in that old house and letting Sam be the target for everything.

Survivor's guilt? Christ, that was barely the half of it.

Jim stares down at his plate and then drops the toast back onto it. He's not hungry any more. "I'm losing my mind being here." There isn't much overt emotion tacked onto the statement. He might as well be talking about the weather or the turtle's health. Every line of his body language is screaming I'm fine! in a desperate bid to make it true, but it's only half working, and he sets the plate calmly and carefully on the coffee table.

Edited 2013-07-17 15:42 (UTC)

It's a bizarre situation, them being able to read each other. It had caused clashes because both of them hated it - being known - figured out so simply, but Kyle's learning that it's a double-edged sword. He knows when Jim needs help, but he's not sure if there's a door in between, whether he should offer anything in return. And Jim has his pride.

Kyle puts down the slice of toast but chews the fork, thoughtfully. He doesn't think of Jim as Corps, precisely, because first of all, Lanterns are hardened, sturdy people, taught to fight, survive and go on, and they'll keep doing that no matter where they are or who is (or isn't) with them. They expect bloodshed and suffering. Jim, on the other hand, he's an explorer. His world is bright, full of colours and sounds that Kyle doesn't know and can't touch, no matter how many times he runs his hands along the cracks in the walls.

And Jim's more volatile. He's a conflagration that needs Spock and McCoy to keep it in check, and Kyle knows Jim's not going to be talking about that because Kyle... doesn't have his people here.

But it's windows and blizzards again, and Guy is standing on a balcony saying You're a better man than I am. Gunga Din. And sometimes, the wind whistles through the leaves and sends ripples through the waters so they are no longer still.

'How can we ease it?' Because fixing it completely won't happen, not unless Jim's entire ship and crew get brought here, or he is sent home. Kyle goes for the next best thing.

"We don't," he says flatly. "I deal." And I learn how to go on. It never hit him, before, how much of his energy had gone into being prepared for his own death, the aching inevitability of it all. Now that door is closed and a million others have opened but he feels... cheated, in a way, of all the work that went into the acceptance, and worse by the fact that he's the only one.

He's the only one that gets to come back.

He didn't want to die, that much was true and real. But he didn't want-- he didn't want to be the only exception. Not for this. For everything else the world over, yeah. Of course. That's what he's been fighting for ever since he set foot in the Academy. Four years? I'll do it in three.

But this is the wrong kind of exception, the wrong way to break the rules, and it feels like the chance to change things, to make everything right has been ripped away from him entirely.

There's a vicious, bitter thought in the back of his mind, barely an echo, I wish I'd stayed dead.

But he squashes it, drowns it out amidst the anger and helpless rage.

He takes the fork out of his mouth and taps it on the plate, pursing his lips, as he studies a very fascinating (ha) part of the wall. There's a million things he can do, and maybe that's the problem. He's always had few options (learn or die) and the choice was clear. But with Jim, there's too many variables. One step could lead to a slippery slope and Kyle's not sure he's willing to face the consequences of this, even if he's willing to face everything else in his life and carry it with him.

'I've experienced true serenity,' he says, surprising himself with the words. 'I offered it to Spock, should he need it. It's yours, if you want it.'

Peace wouldn't know what to do with you, but he wonders if that's still the case now.

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